


Little boxes (made of ticky tacky)

by perennial_distaste



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Blow Jobs, Bottom Steve Harrington, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Smut, Tommy's a dick, Top Billy Hargrove, Unreliable Narrator, Voyeurism, scopophilia, small town anxiety, who engages in a little introspection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-26 02:49:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20735024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perennial_distaste/pseuds/perennial_distaste
Summary: Billy’s insinuations haunts him still, as he lays with Carol, poolside in Deltona, her reddening under the Floridian scorch and Tommy consumed by the events of that summer. He’s desperately piecing it all together. That year. Steve. Billy. Hawkins.The answers drift further away from him, the longer he ruminates.A Tommy-sees-things-he-shouldn't type deal. Shit goes south.





	Little boxes (made of ticky tacky)

  
There’s something rampant in Hawkins. The summer after graduation felt airless and murky and just generally off-kilter. The way it did every time something went wrong. Zombie boy, Barb, that guy that worked at the RadioShack just off Main St, that Tommy and Carol bought cassettes from. He’d forgotten the dopey guy’s name but he was that specific saccharine brand of harmless that would have made him perfect bully fodder in his teen years. Tommy feels bad for thinking that. Even if he would have, realistically, been the one strong-arming him out of his Spanish homework.

Carol snickered when he told her this. “You only say that ‘cos old tubby bit the dust, baby.” She’s coquettish with him, even now, even though they’ve been together longer than eternity and Tommy’s not going anywhere. She twirls a copper strand, peering at him over her sunglasses, ”You never feel bad about anything, Tommy-boy”.

That’s not exactly right. When his mind wanders to places it’s not supposed to, he feels bad for a lot of people. He feels bad for himself a lot more than he used to, for Carol who doesn’t know and who could never understand, maybe he even feels bad for Billy, who’s stuck in this shithole with all of them.

Mostly, he just thinks about Steve Harrington.

Poor, lonely Steve, who lost his girl and his crown in a single week and now spends his days at a kitsch ice-cream parlour. His uniform is a humiliation his former classmates will drive down from Kingston to see, and frequently do. Tommy remembers Henry Chaplin, who’d spent so much time on the bench his resentment for Steve had manifested into him lassoing any girl desperate enough to date him into Scoops Ahoy and barking long, complicated orders across the counter.

There are rumours that Harrington hadn’t been accepted to a single college, not even community. Tommy can’t believe that, Steve was never that stupid. Careless with classes, maybe. A little superficial, of course. But who in Hawkins’s higher echelons wasn’t? Surely, big, bad Papa-Harrington could have greased some wheels, maybe made donations to pull up what he lacked in his GPA?

Tommy has other theories as to Steve’s retainment in Hawkins. Nothing that he’d care to share with Carol, not because he doesn’t love her, but because he wants to keep some things scared. It’s a different kind of love, he thinks. He’s known Steve since the sandbox and even though Harrington’s a traitor and a loser and so many other things that Tommy’s too scared to say out loud, lest someone hear him and think Tommy is _that_ as well, he still can’t fully deliver that final smackdown that would bring Steve to his knees.

Billy Hargrove must have always suspected Tommy, because when push came to shove, he knew that he’d keep their secret. Billy recognised small town fear in Hawkins’s collective gaze. The fear that kept them all rooted here long after college and babies and all that. Billy exploited that fear in Tommy, the same way he exploited everything else, perpetually pleased by his own ability to move them around like pawns. Looking back though, Tommy thinks it wasn’t so straight-forward.

_“You’ve got no killer instinct, Hagan,'' Billy berates him, spitting every syllable - personal space be damned, during their last game with the Albany Cowboys. _

_Tommy had failed his captain again, so he takes it like any good first lieutenant, back solid, eye-to-eye with Billy._

_ “That’s why you’re always second fiddle, you hear! ‘Cos you’re a fucking pussy.”_

Tommy still replays Hargrove’s words a lot. Knowing what he knows now, he’s shocked at the amount of entendres and implications that were dropped in front of the whole team, often with the whole school watching. Billy Hargrove’s ego had always taken precedent over self-preservation apparently, because now Tommy wonders how he could have _not _seen. Not noticed what he was doing.

Billy’s insinuations haunts him still, as he lays with Carol, poolside in Deltona, her reddening under the Floridian scorch and Tommy consumed by the events of that summer. He’s desperately piecing it all together. That year. Steve. Billy. Hawkins. The answers drift further away from him, the longer he ruminates.

#

Carol was the one that had suggested that Tommy and the boys introduce themselves in the first place. They’d seated themselves around Billy at lunch, on the second day after his Levi-clad ass had landed itself amongst tragic Indiana rubes. They’d clapped his shoulder, asked about California and tried not to appear too interested in his car and his dangly earring. Desperately trying to assure him that he was one of them, that they were cool dudes too, yeah Hawkins was a dump but this would be his sole refuge from all that. Billy never showed anyone particular enthusiasm. He sat more or less silent, sizing up Hawkins’ best offerings while spread out on two cafeteria chairs like he was lounging in front of a television set, and nothing in his reaction demoted that he was even marginally impressed.

In hindsight, Tommy realises how they must have looked to him, eager, unfashionable Midwesterners panting at his every word. He was on the cusp of manhood, god knows how many actual fights under his belt, plus all the girls, _women_ even, that he’d slept with, other things too that they had no clue about, maybe only heard rumours of someone, somewhere whose cousin was like _that_, their voices always hushed when they discussed it. 

Tommy had let some of the other guys try a little too hard in front of the cool, new kid before casually mentioning Tina’s Halloween party. He doesn’t invite Billy straight up, but he can tell by the change of posture that maybe he’s struck on something. He thinks he detects a glimmer of curiosity, even though Billy eyes were permanently fixed at half-mast and rarely affected.

By Tina’s party, Billy had integrated himself nicely into their social milieu. Tommy saw him transform into a magnanimous champion that night, parading through the crowd amidst the cheers from his enamoured subjects, soaked in beer and victory. 

If he had foreseen the _thing _with Steve, he certainly wouldn’t have been able to put a name to it. Boys will be boys, and they joshed and fought and sometimes it was beyond brutal and sometimes they held unspeakable grudges for years for unnamed reasons, but what started that night between Billy Hargrove staring, wet and triumphant but suddenly angry, at a shocked Steve Harrington, wasn’t that at all. It looked normal on the surface, two kings on the brink of a tug-of-war for the only thing in Hawkins worth fighting over, the only thing worth a damn in this tiny hell town before school ends and so do your glory days and life becomes inevitable and boring. 

Tommy had stood by, awkwardly laughing at the drawn out stare down, secretly on edge, desperately wanting to watch the tension combust into something.

#

He’d missed Steve after he’d betrayed him and Carol for Nancy. He could admit it to himself a week after the theatre-prank-gone-wrong, when Steve had maintained his stony silence and Tommy went the longest time in his life without speaking to his best friend. His memories swelled at night with their early adolescent selves, bouncing a basketball haphazardly in Steve’s driveway. 

_Tryouts for the cubs are next week and they’re both not ready. Steve’s sure that they’ll be condemned to sit with the nerds for the rest of middle school. They’re both scared shitless. _

Or younger still, when their parents used to bring them on playdates and they’d scoff Bomb Pop Popsicles until their mouths were purple and their hands were sticky, before washing it all off in Steve’s pool. They’d hold their breath for as long as possible but Steve always won and when his head broke the water's surface he’d whoop in Tommy’s face. _King Steve, King Steve. _And Tommy would call back_ All Hail the king!_

He used to wonder if Steve missed him back. He should have, after everything they’d been through together. But after the Hawk Theatre brawl, Steve never went out of his way to speak to anyone in their former circle. It was like Nancy Wheeler had consumed him, and Byers too, because when they returned to school for his final year Steve was quieter and kinder and more solemn. Tommy resented that it was Nancy of all people to do that to Steve, Nancy Wheeler who wore prim sweaters and good-girl earrings and had the body of a 12 year old, managed to subdue King Steve and bring him to heel. Jonathan Byers was involved in this somehow, Tommy still isn’t sure in what way, but Tommy hated him too. Hated that Steve would now linger conspiratorially behind the gym with his lame new friends and how he’d look up with a worried expression anytime someone trespassed on their sacred ground. 

#

It was actually Byers himself, that had given Tommy his terrible idea. Creepy, soft-spoken Jonathan, with his small watchful eyes had once sidled through the woods on the border of Loch Nora and snapped some saucy images of Nancy Wheeler in her training bra right before her and Steve got down to business. Tommy remembers from the photos how the woods had a good panoramic view of Steve’s whole house, the curtains of which were never drawn, because why should they be, when you have all this space and no neighbours and only the woods to showcase your darkest secrets. 

He’d just had just graduated and desperately bored. Billy had started working at the local pool- but that was his hunting ground- he’d told Tommy, and he didn’t want him prowling around scaring off the good tail. Tommy steered clear, even if Billy’s brush off had sounded weak at the time. Carol was planning their trip to Florida, and his basketball buddies were too preoccupied with college preparations to hang out at their usual haunts, so Tommy felt suffocated with thoughts of Steve again. He’d sometimes see him drive into Starcourt in his glistening, burgundy Beemer, usually alone, but sometimes surrounded by a mob of unruly brats. 

Why didn’t he have friends his own age? Why didn’t he date? Why wasn’t he trying? What kind of life is that, for a former King?

The pernicious question of Steve’s downfall cooked in Tommy’s brain for weeks while Carol planned and Billy fucked until he decided that Jonathan Byers had a point, seeing for yourself was worth a million hypothetical explanations. 

#

Stalking was a word reserved for freaks and perverts. Tommy had every right anyway, to roam where he chose, even if he didn’t live in Loch Nora anymore. The neighbourhood was in walking distance and the day was hot, so since he’d been effectively banned from the pool and from Carol’s bedroom and having exerted his options at Starcourt, it seemed almost predestined that he’d end up here. Eventually. He’d spared a thought to the fact that Steve would probably swim today, so he’d definitely be visible from the small dense growth at the periphery of his yard. Shamefully, Tommy had remembered his work roster and specifically picked the hottest day this summer.

He's wasn’t twitchy Jonathan Byers though, he reassured himself, skulking around with a bad haircut, camera in tow, he simply walked and walked until he saw the colourless monstrosity that was the Harrington residence, formally a site of much teenage bacchanalia and debauchery, now standing silent, as it had for more than a year.

Steve couldn’t be trusted with good thing, apparently.

Tommy could see the moss covered shingles discoloured in glaring sunlight. The pool water gleaming. It was maddeningly quiet. The residents of Loch Nora gave themselves plenty of distance from prying eyes and what they couldn’t conceal with acreage, they made up for with large oaks and thickets, incessantly fearful that anyone would impinge on their privacy.

Weighing up his options, he froze behind a particularly dense Green Ash when he saw movement from the sliding doors. He watched, as the one and only, Steve Harrington stepped out onto the pool deck, pale limbed, in blue swim trunks. Tommy thought he looked nervous, one arm clutched protectively over his stomach, like he was chilly in 80 degree weather. He looked around surreptitiously, and Tommy slid down closer to the earth, trying to avoid the tell-tale crunch that could betray his whereabouts. Steve seemed to be waiting for something, he toed the decking shyly, looking back inside.

Tommy watched as Steve called out something to the house’s dark interior. His heartbeat maniacal. Like it knew something he didn’t. Saw Steve listen for a response. Nothing but the quiet. He watched further, as Steve waited and waited until deciding not to any longer, and slid carefully into the pool’s cool waters. He didn’t jump or splash, just submerged himself fully, until nothing but a dark tuft of hair floated on the water’s surface.

There was a beat, a moment, where Tommy relaxed. He was strung out over his former friend going for a swim of all things, probably with one of those nerdy dipshits that trailed him all over town. He contemplated retreat until a voice boomed back from the living room. It was deep and masculine and Tommy knew who it was without even looking up to check, without needing to see Billy Hargrove emerge from Steve Harrington’s house in his lifeguard shorts and a towel and his Californian swagger.

His first and only thought was that Billy was a goddamn liar. Fucking bullshit artist with all his deflections, every time Tommy wanted to hang. Always something about needing to save money for next year or wanting to take one of those sweet poolside babes to Bersham’s diner.

_“Seriously Tommy, those legs, man! But you know Ashley I. better than I do. She’ll never put out, ‘less you butter her up first. Yeah, it sucks, but I gotta motor, if I wanna make it.”_

So what, they were friends now? Billy fucks with Steve all year, picking at his hair and his clothes and his game, pounds his face into mincemeat and now dodges Tommy because? Of Harington’s private pool? Unlimited alcohol? Tommy considered the possibility that this was some obscure form of bullying, maybe blackmail on Billy’s part.

They seem so comfortable though.

He watches carefully and when Steve’s head finally breaks the surface he smiles up at Billy and Billy smiles back.

Looking at them looking at each other, he sees that Halloween night tension still. Its flavoured differently though, he can tell even at this distance. Less white hot, palpitations, more slow, syrupy, _warm_. 

Billy, never one for restraint, takes a runner and cannonballs into the pool, dangerously close to Steve’s head. Pleased with the commotion he’s caused, he grins wildly as he surfaces. Shakes out his long blonde curls like a golden retriever after a hose bath. 

Billy Hargrove is a caricature of himself.

He howls in that gross, immature way of his, that girls should roll their eyes at but few actually do, because Billy Hargrove is strapping and magnetic and has eyelashes to spare.

Tommy sees Steve makes a panicked motion to stop him. His hand moves to clasp over the full lips for just a second to prevent the caterwaul, but Billy is seemingly both faster and stronger because he pries the pale limb off him, and pushes it back onto Harrington. His whole body moves in, and in only a single moment he’s _too_ close.

Closer than Tommy had ever gotten his entire life.

Closer than Tommy has ever permitted himself to get.

Their mouths joined together so fluidly that it took several beats for Tommy to fully grasp what he was seeing. Steve’s hand secured tightly in the gold mane, Billy’s gripping possessively at the pale skin of Steve’s back.

Once they connected, they seemed locked together. Tommy held his breath, waiting for one of them to break the link. Step away. Fight it. He anticipated a push back, a punch maybe, instead they were mostly still. Two cats in the sun, grooming gently.

They seemed familiar with their movements, they had the kind of fluidity you only get from extensive practice. The kind he had with Carol. The luxurious slowness in their actions, suggested they could spend all day like this. Melting into each other.

Horror kept Tommy rooted in place watching them slowly lick and stroke. Billy’s hand extracted itself from the small of Steve’s back and manoeuvred between their bodies. Steve’s mouth released for a second, popped open in slight chagrin, and he saw Billy’s face contort with satisfaction. 

_Jesus, they’re fags._

It should have been funnier than it felt.

Former King Steve and the new local heartthrob buggering the bejesus out of each other during summer break. If he were Byers he’d take pictures and make that the new headline. 

What a joke. What a freakshow. 

He wasn’t about to leave. Getting up would alert the happy couple to Tommy’s location and even though he might have been able to handle Steve on his own, he was realistic about his chances with Billy. He wasn’t going to be eating out of a straw for the rest of his life, so he just sat there, as he was, pressed close to the ground, aware of the sweat gathering on his brow. 

Billy bit at Steve’s neck, leading him slowly, gradually to the pool’s edge. His hand was obscured by the water, until it wasn’t, pushing at the blue material. Down, down, until he deposited Steve’s only piece of armour with a grotesque _slop_, on the concrete deck.

He extracts himself off Steve’s neck.

Says something low, into the shell of Steve’s ear.

It’s definitely filthy. Tommy knows Billy, knows how he is. Steve doesn’t blush, only looks down a little between them and smiles.

Billy’s hand back between them. Under the water. The small jerky motions, _up down, up down_, make tiny waves.

Tommy’s afraid to blink. To breath.

Steve’s head rests on Billy’s shoulder. His face concealed in the mess of wet blond hair. His arms clutch on to bronzed shoulders and Tommy feels his own hands tighten their grip on the Green Ash. Both hanging on to their life preservers.

Billy’s hand releases Steve. Unclasps his pale arms from around him. In one smooth motion he hoists King Steve out of the water like a ragdoll and seats him on the pool’s edge.

He’s gloriously hard. Obviously. Wasn’t that the point?

Tommy’s clothes are damp, his pants tight. He can feel where this is going, although he’s still not sure he believes it. Billy’s a brute. An enduring gym junky. Tommy remembers him refusing to even taste a Bud Light.

_Do I look like a bitch to you, Hagan?_

Steve Harrington’s dick is apparently more acceptable that light beer, because when he leans back, supported by his elbows on the scorching concrete, Billy’s face is almost instantaneously planted in between white thighs.

It’s a bizarre image. Guys like Billy really shouldn’t. Tommy doesn’t know a single guy on the Basketball team that even eats pussy.

Real-men. Manly-men. They don’t put their mouth on anything.

Hargrove’s enthusiasm is depraved, Tommy thinks. He doesn’t want to see him like this. It’s too inconsistent with the image of Billy he’s created in his head. The newly tatted Billy, first in their age group to do so. The Billy with a million notches in his belt. The Billy that maybe, _possibly_, rumour has it, was seen driving out of Motel 6 on the same night as Karen Wheeler.

He’s too far to hear anything. But he can imagine it sounds disgusting. Probably tastes disgusting too. Like chlorine and whatever the hell cock tastes like. Billy’s mouth is red and full and when he pulls back off the tip there’s a long, clinging strand of saliva glistening in the midday sun. He spits aggressively back onto Steve’s dick, scrapes the collecting drool from his chin and his head bobs down again.

Tommy’s throat heaves involuntarily.

Like he’s the one deep-throating Steve Harrington at twelve in the afternoon.

Steve’s flat against the deck now, eyes closed. His hands have found their way into blond tendrils and his legs spread out on Billy’s shoulders. Billy just lets him thrust into his mouth, while staring up at him. Tommy’s not sure he seen dick-sucking this professional in any porn he’s watched.

They shift slightly, and Tommy loses his good angle. He can make out that Steve’s legs go even higher and then slightly off Billy. Billy, in turn, leans further in. It makes Steve arch off the deck and his eyes open. Legs shaking. Tommy’s not sure if he knows what just happened. He, sort of, _guesses_. He also thinks that he’s maybe hallucinating. His brain’s battle with cognitive dissonance goes into overdrive. Billy’s hand goes to the same place his mouth is.

Not Steve’s dick.

It’s so much worse than he imagined.

He’s in a hypnotised state when Billy slows. Removes his mouth from _there_. Steve looks disappointed. He hasn’t come yet. Billy floats back into the pool motioning for Steve to join him. They speak for a second but it’s impossible to hear from where Tommy’s at. Either that, or he’s lost the ability to parse information.

Whatever discussion they were having mid-coitus, Billy clearly lost. He looks disgruntled as the heaves himself out of the pool, red shorts stretching over his erection. Steve motions to the loungers littering the desk’s periphery.

Too close.

Tommy crouches lower. Hears the blood in his ears. Prays to anyone who might be listening.

Steve’s beckoning him over. He sits expectantly, his back to Tommy. From here he can make out the multitude of moles on pale skin. Like tiny little stars on the firmament of Steve Harrington.

Billy approaches, pulling down his trunks. His dick level with Steve’s face. Tommy can’t see Steve’s expression but he can see Billy’s and its nothing short of feral. He says nothing, just leers down at Steve and pushes his head down onto his crotch. Tommy’s no connoisseur but this feels wildly different to Billy’s prior ministrations. Billy’s clearly not a fan of slow, sensual blowjobs, because Steve has both hands splayed out protectively, occasionally scrambling for purchase on Billy’s hips when the jack-hammering gets to be too much. He hears coughing, followed by the wheezing sound that asthma kids get in P.E.

Tommy wants to smash Billy’s face until there’s nothing but red slosh and broken teeth.

He’s also probably never been this hard in his life.

His dick is actively leaking precum. A nasty little voice perks up inside.

_Yeah, that’s it. Really give it to him._

He watches them change positions. Billy lets himself be pushed down into the pool lounger. Resting his arms behind his head. Obscenely. Like the over-sexed man-child that he is. Steve’s hovering over him. Tommy sees the forceful rise and fall of his chest. The way his dick stands angrily aroused against his stomach. The jerky way he brushed his hair off his face. His mouth looks abused. His pupils dark and dilated.

He can feel the want radiating. It’s so strong and unexpected it feels like a slap in the face.

A part of him knows what’s going to happen next. The next logical step. His last fragments of Steve-bound loyalty, scream out in blind panic.

_nonono_

But something deeper, lower, more animal inside him licks its proverbial lips.

_Come on._

Cautiously, Steve straddled the pool lounger. Gently perching himself on a hard muscled stomach, he leaned down slowly, as though fearful that the flimsy metal chaise may collapse beneath them. His hands pulled Billy’s arms out from under his head and locked their fingers together. He kissed and kissed at his mouth until his own was coloured and the surrounding skin was scratched from Billy’s offensive facial hair.

Billy bucked up beneath him. Freeing his hands from Steve’s and placing them with a smack on the soft flesh of his hips. Tommy watched as thick fingers travelled lower and grabbed at the pliant softness of Steve’s cheeks. Pulling apart, pulling together. Like Steve was a toy or a lump of dough.

He’d never hated Billy Hargrove more than in this moment.

He’d also never, even for a second, allowed himself to imagine being him. Not even when Billy singularly dominated each basketball game or when he’d turn down Aubrey Grieco, the hottest girl in Hawkins, because apparently she “didn’t put out fast enough”.

Billy had always seemed as far from Tommy’s reality as Patrick Swayze. But as he watched Steve reach behind himself, mouth hanging open, take Billy’s dick and gently slide back onto it, he was aware, for the first time, that he would have given anything to take his place.

Tommy could feel his hardness. The wetness of his pants and his shirt. That he’d been crouched uncomfortably in the thickets in the Indiana heat for god knows how long now.

His knees hurt. His heart ached. But he just watched as Steve pushed down further until he bottomed out on Billy Hargrove’s cock.

Tommy could see he was straining a little. Possibly, it hurt. Although, Steve gave no indication, he didn’t slow his pace or speak to Billy, whose hands now clasped possessively on his ass.

They moved like that, while the sun burned above them. Billy pushing up, Steve pushing down to meet him. Their motions became faster slightly, when Steve pulled his legs onto the lounger for better balance. Billy leaned up, grabbed a handful of dark hair and pulled their faces together. Not kissing Steve, the way Tommy would have hoped, just holding him so close that eye contact was unavoidable. Nodding mockingly in tandem with Steve’s breathless panting, an inch from his face, fist locked in tight at the back of his head.

Steve arched against the fist, fighting to free himself from the grip in his hair. He whined so loudly, Tommy shrank back in panic.

It struck him how bold this was. In broad daylight. During summer vacation. Especially, for a guy who’d already been caught fucking, pretty much from this exact vantage point, only 2 years ago.

Maybe Steve really was that stupid.

Maybe he was an exhibitionist.

Even worse, maybe he was doing this because Billy wanted to. Because he wanted to make Billy happy. Even if he was caught again. For the same thing. Only a million times worse.

Steve thrashed his head, legs shaking again, and Billy refuses to release him from his clutch. He was becoming more and more vocal, obviously lost in the moment, having forgotten himself completely. Tommy can make out the pleading in his voice _now, Billy please, I can’t_ and then something painful, a strangled noise from the back of his throat and it was over. White streaks splattered on tanned muscles and Steve slumped forward, face first into Billy’s shoulder.

They lay like that. Still and exhausted. The air now uncomfortably quiet, only the occasional cheep from the native House Finch, penetrating the silence.

Tommy is mentally begging for them to get up. To move. Everything inside him hurt like the devil and his muscles ached and it was only then that he truly acknowledged the sweat pouring down his brow and inside his shirt.

It was like the end of a movie, the lights turned on, and Tommy was now witness to the surrounding mess of popcorn and wrappers. The sudden emptiness of adrenaline leaving him. The realisation that _they_ were out there, by the pool, entwined in each other, and he was here crouching, hard, angry and no better than Jonathan Byers.

They did get up, of course. Steve stretched his arms, yawned and extracted himself off Billy. He offered a hand to the boy below him, who refused and pushed up from the recliner. Upright now, he patronizingly smacked a hand on Steve’s shoulder. Like he used to after a winning game, when Steve had played by Billy’s rules. Aggressive. Uncompromising.

_Not too bad, Harrington. Good to see that fire back._

What a colossal prick.

He should have kissed him. Taken him in his arms. Carried him back into the house. Cloaked him in adoration. It was what Steve liked, why Tommy had always conceded to calling him the King.

Instead, Billy, newly crowned lord of the degenerates, shuffles to collect his drying shorts, before recalibrating and claiming Steve’s. He examines the blue material momentarily, decides that it will indeed suffice, before using it to wipe the come off his front and tossing the swimmers into the pool. He turns to smile back at Steve, gauging his reaction.

Steve says nothing, just follows his shorts to where they were now slowly sinking into chlorine waters. Soaking wet again, he strolls by Billy to the open sliding doors, silently flipping him the bird on the way past.

Billy, enthused by this response, follows him back into the house. His raucous laughter only fading when he was well inside the Harrington living room.

#

When Tommy thinks back to that day, he’d always struggle to remember how he got home. He remembers crackling sticks beneath his feet, his mouth dry, dehydration setting in. He knows he didn’t look back to the Harrington house, to double-check that he was in the clear. He recalls wanting a shower, a cold glass of water and to come. Or to throw up.

He did both in the safety of his guest bathroom. The orgasm was so immediate, that it couldn’t help but disappoint. His pants weren’t even to his knees as he leaned over his mother’s decorative hand towels, a gentle graze on the head of his dick against the stiff material was enough and they were covered in angry lashes of semen. He thought of the come splatter on Billy’s abs and his stomach protested in revolt. Kneeling over the toilet bowl, he felt his breakfast follow his lunch until he was retching emptily, on his own bile, head resting against the cold porcelain.

He lays in bed that evening, ignoring Carol’s phone calls and his parents’ panicked clucking. He thought he’d emptied his emotions along with his stomach but as the night grew longer and he struggled to sleep, turning his pillow to cool his hot face, he felt himself boiling over.

Hadn’t he invested the time? The effort? Hadn’t his dedication for years been a delicate form of courtship? All the fights he’d fought, while King Steve stood, arms crossed, watching his first knight get bloodied and bruised, in crisp polos. Never having to raise a finger himself. Too spoiled and beloved until the day Jonathan Byers snapped like a mad dog and his highness felt the wrath of dissention for the first time upon his own pretty face. 

He’d been robbed, he realises.

By Billy.

By Nancy and Byers.

By Steve for being a shallow, unappreciative slut who never threw him a single scrap.

By the whole of Hawkins for forcing him into this decade long charade. Instead of just asking. Just gripping Steve firmly and telling him what he’d wanted to say since they were seven, swimming in the same pool that Billy had polluted with his presence. 

His spends the night marinating in anger. Teeth grinding until his temples throb. By daybreak, when he’s sitting against his headboard, Tommy’s calmer. He fingers a cigarette absent-mindedly.

Carol’s always forgiven him.

She’ll forgive him again.

He lights up. The summer is long and hot and Tommy is nothing if not optimistic.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback appreciated


End file.
